ARM Moves to LLVM Open-Source for Future Compilers

The move to LLVM open-source will not create a free tool suite either, he said. “I don’t think it will pull down the cost of DS-5; the value is about the full integrated package for end-to-end development all the way from an emulator or FPGA all the way to the finished device.

“ARM Compiler 6 will be another choice with our proprietary tools around it. Long term we want to pull the compilers out and have them as plug-ins to eclipse as they are big and the whole package is getting big, but we are not there yet. You can plug in your own version of GCC today into Eclipse and we ship the Linaro GCC compiler because that’s the one we invest in.

"Lead customers are already using the new LLVM technology. We have a v8 tool chain today that’s not public; it’s been in use by our lead partners for a couple of years now. We will also announce the public availability of that previously private tool chain, effectively it’s DS-5 Ultimate, which is DS-5 Pro with the new compiler and support for ARM v8.

"The tools for v8 are not new for ARM, the real announcement is the new compiler and we really need to have a good silicon platform to start doing the optimization. We will have platforms this year and we have optimizations planned for both GCC and LLVM and as its open source, anyone can go and do their benchmarks. In the past the proprietary compiler we did not allow open benchmarking, but now anyone can run their own benchmarks. All of the optimizations will go back into open-source first and then pull in a snapshot for the commercial product."